It may be a virtual world but most things are still better in person. Take the paintings of Katherine Morris, alarmingly muddied in promotional slides, but popping off the wall with sporadic fits of color and big enthusiastic form on the walls of Box Gallery (1611 Paseo de Peralta, 989-4897).
But it wasn't just Morris' capable large-scale paintings pumping the air with a sense of plump possibility at last weekend's opening reception. It wasn't just the gorgeous new space that Box has recently carved from the former offices of Mothering Magazine, next to the Railyard Performing Arts Space and (probably through more coincidence than symbolism) just across the tracks from SITE Santa Fe. It also wasn't just the proximity to a typically hopping, frightfully successful exhibition of
Small Figures
at the nearby Santa Fe Clay (1615 Paseo de Peralta, 984-1122)-but it was a combination of all these factors and the sense that, despite the fact that nothing very noticeable has really happened, at least a portion of the city's Railyard property is coming into focus.
On maps of the community-input-process-inspired "Master Plan," which the non-profit Santa Fe Railyard Community Corporation is meant to follow in developing the 50-odd-acre publicly owned property, it's called the Paseo Arts Corridor and, against all odds, it's happening. The most unpredictable and satisfying turn of events is that developers for a proposed artist live/work and mixed-use development, to be built on the current site of Warehouse 21, recently sat down with peeved neighbors, city councilors and the Railyard Corporation and talked until they found a compromise that worked for everyone. Not long ago, these factions were portraying each other as the devil's minions-presenting the very real likelihood of a major stall in developing the property, and the adjacent public park-and now the project is moving forward. The most predictable, but equally satisfying twist (and the reason why the City Council should have been bending over backward to help SITE Santa Fe all along, instead of reaming them for $10,000 a month as they did in the early years), is that Box Gallery isn't the only contemporary gallery landing in the corridor. Current Canyon Road rebel-with-a-blue-chip Evo Gallery will be relocating across from SITE in the Sears/Hanson Family building, made art-famous by James Kelly Contemporary. And, if rumors are to be believed, Kelly himself will be returning and possibly Charlotte Jackson Fine Art.
Shazaam! That's an art scene! Pile all the aforementioned entities up, stir in the community-minded El Museo Cultural, the new building on the way for Warehouse 21 (hypnosis interlude: pick up the phone, call W21, write a check…), add Bistro 315, a full-time Farmer's Market, a public park with landscape design (including very creative interpretations of children's' play areas-I snuck a peak while lurking about the TPL offices) by artist Mary Miss, it-landscape architect Ken Smith and architect Frederic Schwartz and, for good measure, toss in a dash of late-to-the-gamers scrambling to get in on the action and that's quite a contemporary culture epicenter. If you really start to map out the proximity of all that stuff to WilLee's, The Cowgirl, Aztec Street Café, True Believers, Andiamo, Blue Moon Books and Video, Whole Foods, Zia Diner, Sanbusco Center and a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting, well, it gets almost deliriously boho. It sort of makes you wonder why we're planning a multiplex theater/retail center on the remaining piece of the north Railyard and digging up Native American burial ground downtown to build a new convention center in a less-than-ideal location, when we could finish off the Railyard with a brilliant multi-purpose, community-use center, turn the site of the Sweeney Center into downtown open park space with an interpretive archaeological interactive component and just build a great bicycle/walking path from the Railyard and downtown areas over to the DeVargas Center where there's already one multiplex, plenty of retail and room for more of both-with existing parking. But hey, what do I know?
Best of all is that, as all of this manifests in the next two years, folks in positions of power with the city (who shall remain nameless) will slowly realize that promoting contemporary culture is an even more viable economic development strategy than clinging desperately to the past. Not that we'll ever forsake the strong roots and cultural traditions of Santa Fe, not that we'll compromise our important Historic Districts…well, with maybe one exception: I hate to push a good thing too far but, sometimes that's already happened and it's best to embrace the horror, the horror of Canyon Road. Surely a beautiful street and surely an important part of our city's history, not to mention our Christmas ritual, but what has Canyon Road done for us lately? The contemporary galleries that aren't yet leaving for the Railyard or the downtown scene will soon be in danger of being consumed, at least metaphorically, by Gypsy Baby, the cute overpriced toddler togs joint that spreads like a bright corduroy cancer. It's not Gypsy Baby's fault, the trend is toward predictable high-end retail-most tourists don't really want to buy art, but a lot of people will spring for a facsimile of it or, failing that, a diaper bag. But assuming, despite a new art neighborhood, we still have some deep psychological need as Santa Feans to continue to cater to a certain kind of adobe looky-loo tourist, how about we turn Canyon Road into a theme ride? We could base it on the original Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland, complete with mechanized versions of drunken artists, uptight gallery owners in sheer pantsuits and happy tortilla-, jewelry- and retablo-making minorities. A little train car would ferry tourists up the street and provide faux brushes with peril and culture as the little car lurches and chugs through galleries, bars and burrito haunts.
It's not like too many important institutions will be displaced-word on the street is that even Gypsy Baby is opening a store on Guadalupe Street, right by the Railyard.
